Setting

The recurring segments featuring Arthur, Doctor Hubris, Fletcher, Leaf, and the other assorted cast of recurring characters normally take place in the fictional city/town of Apple Valley, Ohio.  It’s a small city, big enough for a few local television stations, a handfull of skyscrapers, a light rail (that doesn’t work), and a college.

And a giant fissure leading to a magical land of elves, knights, and dragons.  Don’t want to leave that out.

The Crack in The World

Aproximately 15 years before the comic, an “incident” took place that tore the fabric of space and time in Apple Valley, resulting in a lot of the chaos and discord that are witnessed in the comic itself, as well as drawing the legendary Apple of Discord out of hiding and giving it a new focal point in the universe to exist in and around.  The exact details of the “incident” are unclear, however since it occured about 2 months after Hubris Labs opened for business… well, there’s your answer.

The biggest side effect of the rip is that reality has been fundementally comprimised in Apple Valley, and that throughout the town there are now several places where the boundary has completely collapsed between what we normally consider to be the “real world” and a parallel universe where magic and typical “fantasy” elements rule.  While most of Apple Valley remains in this world, significant chunks (mostly of the northern quarter) were teleported to the fantasy world, replaced by their fantastic counterparts.  For example, large sections of the Apple Valley University’s Arts and Sciences department landed in the fantasy side of the city, not that any of the students attending noticed.  Additionally, beyond the juxtaposition of certain geographic elements, there are now a series of portals which interconnect the real and fantasy worlds.

After the initial period of freaking out (which is completely understandable in this sort of an instance), the remaining population of Apple Valley on both sides of the portals have done their best to cope with their new living arrangement.  In fact, commerce between the real world and the fantasy world has proven to be highly benificial to the city as a whole, with a number of shops and eateries springing up around the portals to cater to both sets of potential customers.

The most serious impact is that, following the event, a number of streets are now impassible due to giant gaping holes in reality, leading to the remapping of the entire city and a plethora of traffic issues. 

Also, as an amusing side note, the one light rail train that the city had that serviced the outer loop of the city center vanished, as the track intersects with one of these portals, and the city council decided it was not worth the hassle to buy a new one.  A good portion of the Apple Valley University’s Arts and Sciences department also landed in the fantasy side of the city,

Life in Apple Valley Today

Since city living was, in most cases, better than hut and cave dwelling, a number of the fantastic inhabitants of the fantasy realm have made the city side of things their permenent home.  This includes humans (like Edwin Vivor, aka Sir Vivor), elves (like Leaf), dwarves, orcs, goblins (like Gabbie), and the occasional mythological being (like The Apple itself).

The mixed cultural background has made Apple Valley an interesting place to live, although one not without it’s share of difficulties.  Issues of racial and cultural identity, as well as legal jurisdiction, financial obligation, and property ownership have plagued the residents since the merge took place.

In reality, there *is* an Apple Valley, Ohio, but it’s just a bunch of timeshare condos around a lake in central Ohio, not the thriving convoluted metropolis depicted in the comic… the Apple Valley the comic takes it’s name from is a failed subdivision halfway between Dayton and Toledo up Interstate 75, and occupies this otherwise mostly empty sector of the state.